Hey, Americans, look what your New Best Friend has been up to for the past nine years. In case you didn’t hear about the 2001 Kosovo Redux when Albanians moved on to terrorize neighboring Macedonia, here’s what just this week’s news looks like:

SKOPJE, Macedonia — Macedonian police say a shootout between police and an armed group near the country’s border with Kosovo has left four people dead.

Police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said the four were killed in the area of Radusa village when police intercepted them attempting to smuggle weapons across the border from Kosovo.

He says the four had been traveling in a van in which authorities found a large amount of weapons and explosives.

Earlier this month, a former ethnic Albanian rebel group, the National Liberation Army, claimed responsibility for another shootout in the border area, which it said killed a Macedonian soldier. The Macedonian government had said nobody had been hurt in that shooting.

…A spokesman said police tried to stop a van they suspected of carrying arms across the border, when those inside the vehicle opened fire.

Police returned fire and all “four of them [in the van] were killed,” said police spokesman Ivo Kotevski.
Police found a large amount of weapons and explosives inside the van, he said.

It has been reported on Radio Kosovo that three of the four have been identified, and that one was an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo while the others were Macedonian. [CLARIFICATION: Those would be ethnic Albanians from Macedonia, but nice try there.]

The shoot-out took place in the village of Radusa in the mountainous region on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo. The area is largely ethnic-Albanian.

It is known to be a major smuggling route. Two weeks ago Macedonia seized weapons including rocket launchers, mortars, three anti-aircraft guns, and a large cache of explosives, grenades and mines, the AFP news agency reports.

Mr Kotevski said the dead men were wearing military fatigues.

It is not known if they were connected to the National Liberation Army, a former ethnic Albanian rebel group, which claimed responsibility for another shoot-out on 29 April in the border area.

The NLA said a Macedonian soldier was killed in the incident, although the Macedonian government denied that.

The NLA mounted an insurgency against government forces in 2001, demanding greater rights for the country’s ethnic Albanian minority. [CLARIFICATION: Greater smuggling rights and sex/drug/gun-trafficking rights. And greater anal broom-raping rights.] The conflict lasted several months until Nato helped oversee a ceasefire.

According to EULEX (the European law and order mission that’s been supervising the province since “independence”):

…At around 2 am, a “Mercedes Sprinter” van with fake Prilep registration plates, failed to stop upon order by the police. The persons in the van, dressed in black uniforms, opened fire at the police officers. The police fired back and killed the 4 passengers. An important quantity of weapons was found in the van:

…According to the initial information the following persons took part in the shoot-out: Shaban Zenuni, former NLA and indicted by ICTY in the Mavrovo Road Workers case currently being processed through the local courts (Zenuni is also a former Imam). Zenuni had only recently returned to Macedonia from Italy, where he had been working for a number of years; Qemajl Fejzuli from [Greece] (no criminal records); Xhelel Shala from Pristina (Kosovo) – no further information yet. The fourth person has not been identified yet.

RADUS, Macedonia, May 12 (UPI) — Macedonian police say they killed four members of a Kosovar Albanian gang suspected of trying to smuggle large amounts of weaponry across Macedonia’s borders.

Acting on a tip, police in the village of Radus on the border between Macedonia and Serbia attempted to stop a van believed to be carrying weapons when the occupants opened fire, Radio Srbija reported Wednesday. [PLEASE NOTE: UPI used an accurate reference to “Serbia,” which is where “independent” Kosovo is; it’s part of Serbia.]
…
Several other armed terrorists operating in and around Radusha surrendered to the police…Two weeks earlier Macedonian police found four caches of weapons they allege were smuggled in by the Kosovar Albanian extremist group ONA [one of the countless related Albanian terrorist acronyms]. In an ensuing firefight, one of the group members was injured and a number of others fled to Kosovo.

Kosovo police later announced the arrests of seven suspected ONA members, Radio Srbija reported.

“Terrorists”? Gee, but they CAN’T be terrorists if they’re Albanian, right? Isn’t that what we’re told every day?

The Kosovo police has confirmed that some unknown persons opened fire last night at a camp of Serb returnees in the village of Zac, Istok Municipality, in western Kosovo, but that, fortunately, no one was injured. Patrols of the Kosovo police and KFOR were also in the camp at the time, the police says. Local Albanians oppose the return of Serbs to Zac and in the past few days they have thrown stones at Serbs, who wait in the camp for their houses to be restored. Several Serb returnees have already left Zac due to this.

In fact, Kosovo’s new constitution affirms the nascent country has no designs on any more territory…for all the misgivings we might have about NATO’s Kosovo commitment, unlike the Hamasistan in Gaza, Kosovo is not a lethal threat to the surrounding countries…